Facilitating Creative Thinking at SDSU
Kevin Popović sits on a padded rolling chair at a small table pecking away on a laptop. Aside from a generic-looking wall clock and white board resting on the floor near some empty glass shelves, these are the only furnishings in the vacated fourth-floor conference room that will be the physical center of his universe for the next couple of years.
Kevin Popović at work in what will become the temporary location
of the Zahn Innovation Platform Idea Lab.
It is mid-July and the College of Business Administration’s management department lecturer has just been named director of the Zahn Innovation Platform’s (ZIP) newly created Idea Lab. In a written statement to SDSU faculty and staff, SDSU vice president for research, Stephen Welter, announced that the new position “will include designing and launching the ZIP Idea Lab on the SDSU campus, and guiding its advancement to national prominence and leadership in the areas of creativity, collaboration, and innovation.”
No pressure.
But, first things first. This design thinking instructor must think about designing a space to serve as the Idea Lab’s base until its permanent home in the new Engineering and Interdisciplinary Sciences Complex is completed.
“The first thing we have to do is get a facility in place,” he says while taking a break on a shaded patio of the Conrad Prebys Aztec Student Union, “because with every group of people you have to gather somewhere, so we are going to create an environment at the Idea Lab that will facilitate this.”
THE FACILITATOR
As director of the ZIP Idea Lab, Popović says his role is to "facilitate
creative thinking."
The 52-year-old Popović (pronounced “Popo-vitch”) is good at facilitating. In fact, that’s his primary task as Idea Lab director.
“My role is to facilitate creative thinking,” he explains. “Design thinking is a very prominent current creative process and it's a very empathetic approach. It's about helping people solve problems for other people.
“But there are other methodologies as well. For instance, I teach a class in creativity and innovation in the management department where another process we teach is called purposeful creativity from a book called ‘Creativity, Inc. (: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration).’ It facilitates the development of creative ideas."
Welter’s announcement described Popović’s role as working “with university leaders, faculty, students, and community partners in the establishment, organization, and management” of the new laboratory. He said the new director would have “a lead role in the introduction of the ‘design thinking’ concept to the entire university, including to students, key university leaders, and community personnel.
“In Kevin, we are very happy to find such a highly qualified and energetic person to design and launch the ZIP Idea Lab, and serve as its founding director.”
A KEEN INTELLECT
There may be no one better qualified for the position. Popović is founder and director of Ideahaus®, an award-winning, Pittsburgh-based creative communications agency recognized for its work in the field of communications: marketing, branding, advertising, design, Internet, social media, multimedia, public relations and events.
SDSU's Engineering and Interdisciplinary Sciences Complex, which
is now under construction, will be the home of the ZIP Idea Lab.
Even in casual conversation he displays a keen but accessible intellect and easy-going demeanor that would seem to make him a natural for gathering representatives of disparate disciplines to create, innovate and problem-solve together. He is on campus to help others generate better ideas and strengthen their own creativity.
“This is exactly what my job is,” Popović explains. “I have a student who says, 'I need to learn more. I want to do more. Can you help me generate better ideas?' And she's not looking for me to do it, she's just looking for me to help point her in some direction.”
STIMULUS, STIMULUS, STIMULUS
So where does SDSU’s idea guy get his ideas? “I answer that differently depending on the people I'm talking to,” he says.
“For instance, when I talk to people in a similar position or I talk to other creatives, we don't necessarily have to give the same explanation or background that we do to non-creatives because I think with creatives, the ideas just come. Whether it's the voices in your head or some random thought or you've learned how to channel your ADD for something purposeful, they come to you in a number of different ways."
Popović is the founder of Ideahaus®, an award-winning, Pittsburgh
-based creative communications agency.
Popović recalls growing up in suburban Pittsburgh and being 12 years old when his family got cable television. He remembers it as a sort of revelation.
“My mom had bought me a 12-inch black and white television and when cable got connected to this box I got all this new influx of data and images and sounds and people and experiences and things that I had never had before. Prior to that I had lived in a small neighborhood where my points of reference were quite limited, so when cable came in with all this new influx of ideas it was a stimulus, stimulus, stimulus, stimulus, stimulus and with all that stimulus, I got all these new ideas.
"I remember watching ‘Monty Python’ and all of a sudden there were ideas that came from ‘Monty Python’ and ‘Benny Hill’ and PBS and all of these other types of things I hadn't seen before. So the interjection of a stimulus is one of the ways that has generated ideas for me. I saw something, it made me think of how I could use this something or what I could do differently with this thing and it was very exciting."
WHAT IF?
Through the ZIP Idea Lab, Popović wants to do for others what he remembers his first cable television experience doing for him. He hopes to expand what the Zahn family started through the Zahn Innovation Platform.
Popović will work with university leaders, faculty, students, and
community partners in his job as director of the ZIP Idea lab.
“What started as a concept has turned into a real facility here,” he says. “It is becoming a staple for student entrepreneurs and innovators, and even faculty are using it to say, 'How can I take this idea I have and do something with it?' So I'm very honored to be able to try and build off of what the Zahn family has provided the university.
Popović says he views his new opportunity less like a clean slate, and more like an Etch-a-Sketch. He’s taking what’s already there and shaking it up to create something similar, but different.
“With the Idea Lab I’m privileged to do not only what I'm good at, but what I really enjoy,” he says, “which is helping people generate new ideas. For me, it comes easily. It always has.
“For the most part, this job is going to be fun. It's imaginative and it's really playing ‘What If?’ And I like playing ‘What If’"